Mann UVA emails released

Via email I’m getting reports that the American Tradition Institute has a CD ROM of the Mann University of Virginia emails in hand and are evaluating them.

They are in a 4.3 Megabyte file consisting of 3,827 pages.

Given the suspicious timing of the recent Mann “vindication” report (PDF) from an investigation by the National Science Foundation, I think the effort will be likely to be focused on “what wasn’t released”. Clearly there’s some PR game playing going on with timing to get a “vindication” press release out before anyone in the public has a chance to look at the emails.

ATI promises a press release later today once they have a better handle on the email release.

Given all the roadblocks that have been thrown in front of this FOIA request, IMHO. I expect them to be selected, sanitized, and possibly full of redactions. We’ll know soon.

72 thoughts on “Mann UVA emails released”

Is that legal? The redactions I mean. And “sanitizing” or selecting them, unless there’s some loophole in the judgement forcing their release, would also not be in compliance with the order. So I’m wondering just how they are able to do that without legal consequences, specifically for the individuals involved.

MY first impression – when you MAKE a CD of your music you get to choose what songs you WANT to put on the CD. I see no different here with this CD – this is a Mike Mann produced list of his best songs. Nothing more.

Actually the legal consequences might be for ATI since they consent decree they signed made them promise not to reveal anything they learned from sealed documents pre-justified redactions. They break that and they could be disbarred.

I want to know where they got them. My understanding from reading the NSF report was that Mann himself provided the emails.

I do not understand the logic of allowing a person investigated for falsification to provide the emails himself since it’d be trivial to throw in a few forged emails to vindicate himself while leaving out or altering the damning ones.

When I was a kid I worked at the local hospital in the Housekeeping & Laundry Department. One of the worst jobs (and one that I routinely avoided) was loading 400 lbs per load of soiled hospital laundry into the extractors. I vividly remember one guy who was performing this function vocally complaining about the odor. He said, “Damn! I bet Nixon’s laundry don’t stink this bad!”

I suspect that if we ever got a good, open and objective look at all of Mann’s email we all proclaim that it stinks “worse than Nixon’s laundry”.

I question what it is that the CD ROM discussed in the lead post is supposed to contain. Is it the UVa info that was never considered to be subject to FOI exemptions? Or is it UVa info that is the result of the ‘in camera’ review and a court final decision that the info isn’t exempt from FOI (as UVa claimed)?

Has the ‘in camera’ review ended or even started?

If the CD ROM doesn’t have the contested ‘exempt for FOI’ info then I wouldn’t expect there to be much in it.

Does anyone have clarification of the content of the CD ROM being just UVa info that is not considered to be subject to FOI exemptions?

The truth has been revealed, the liars exposed; no number of vindications will save them from disgrace. We can laugh at them for their continued efforts to keep from drowning in their own sewage. Next, we mightl see them on TWC with more sewage.

4.3 MEGABYTES ?
Last time I checked my email folder there was about 6 GB of emails in there.. Obviously Mann does not get many emails. If each one is avg 10 kb then there are about 440 emails in that file … Not many for such a busy person.

If I recall the court order correctly, U of V must release all the emails to ATI’s lawyers — including all that U of V’s lawyers consider outside the scope of the FOI request. (Pretty much all of them, more or less) ATI’s lawyers then go before the judge and start arguing about why they should be subject to the FOI request. Eventually the lawyers will tell ATI what they can tell us. Until then it is lawyers eyes only.

John Whitman: “I question what it is that the CD ROM discussed in the lead post is supposed to contain. Is it the UVa info that was never considered to be subject to FOI exemptions? Or is it UVa info that is the result of the ‘in camera’ review and a court final decision that the info isn’t exempt from FOI (as UVa claimed)?”

It seems likely that this release is merely the uncontested portion of UVa’s holdings (“Disclosed Information”). According to their agreement (see http://www.atinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ATI-v-UVA-5-24-Protective-Order.pdf ), UVa may supply the information which they believe to be exempt from FOI (“Exempt Information”) up to 30 days later. At that point, ATI will have 90 days in which to review the documents in camera and object to any such exemptions.

Its actually pretty difficult to sanitise a set of emails – the fingerprints of the emails you remove are left all over the emails you keep in – e.g. references to “that mail you sent last week”, that kind of thing. Very difficult to catch it all with software.

It seems likely that this release is merely the uncontested portion of UVa’s holdings (“Disclosed Information”). According to their agreement (see http://www.atinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ATI-v-UVA-5-24-Protective-Order.pdf ), UVa may supply the information which they believe to be exempt from FOI (“Exempt Information”) up to 30 days later. At that point, ATI will have 90 days in which to review the documents in camera and object to any such exemptions.

—————

HaroldW,

Thank you for your comment.

Yes, it makes sense that the CD ROM mentioned in WUWT’s lead post is the uncontested UVa info; that is the UVa info that is not subject to claims of exemption from FOI. It make sense that it is not the contested ‘exempt from FOI’ info that will eventually go through ‘in camera’ review and then a court decision of being releasable.

There contents do not matter the damage was done through the effort the university put into not releases them in the first place but fighting tooth and nail to keep them from public view, especially as they were more then happy to had another persons e-mails over the Greenpeace when they came calling . Who now would believe there not holding stuff back ?

4.3 MEGABYTES ?
Last time I checked my email folder there was about 6 GB of emails in there.. Obviously Mann does not get many emails. If each one is avg 10 kb then there are about 440 emails in that file … Not many for such a busy person.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Ah yes, and 10 kb is 10,240 bytes, and each ASCII character is one byte, making your grossly incorrect estimate of only 440 emails, each, on average, 10,240 characters in length.

Hey, Anthony, have I been banned? Was it because I made jokes about you – in a thread full of jokes about Mann?

{Don’t know. Several repeated posts got dumped (automatically) in the spam folder by the filter, but they are not marked as “Spam” themselves over there. All should be readable. Must be a Mann-made error. Robt]

Suppose you are the prosecution in a high profile trial. If the jury is full of friends of the defendant and if the judge stands to profit from the defendant being innocent, do you really think there will be a fair trial? All the so-called exonerations are nothing more than a red herring. The investigations are just like the science of man-made global warming: they already have the result they wanted before anything began.

Second thought: it depends on the judge. There will be alot of legal back and forth here.

Third thought: I wonder how good Cuccinelli’s communication skills are. This is a classic case of obscured communication coupled with an attempt to buy a publicly adopted result that is not supported by the facts. If Cuccinelli is skilled, he can find the facts, or the obscuration of the facts and head that off. This is legal theater. This is why he filed.

Just because your Email may be full of photos, mpegs, copies of web pages, ASCII and HTML versions of the actual typed Email – and quoted contents of the 10 previous messages in the dialog doesn’t take away from the fact that a novel fits on a floppy disk. Uncompressed.

I’d be much more interested in a copy on my computer than the 0 bytes I currently have.

I do not know if any of you are familiar with Greg Laden’s blog, it is a strange place indeed.
This is what I posted:
I am getting a first hand look at some of the AGW crowds dishonest on this blog that Greg maintains. If such small players can’t stand the truth, then it no wonder that the ones in the big leagues are total lying, dishonest folks. It is somewhat ironic that basically this was all about honesty and now we get an example of that when some one changes a posters links. In other words, data tampering. Is that being honest?

This is what you distorted it into.
19
I am getting a first hand look at some of the AGW shits dishonesty on this shit blog that Greg maintains. If such small players can’t stand the truth, then it is no wonder that the ones in the big leagues are total lying, dishonest shits. Lying shits.
Posted by: John D. Swallow | August 24, 2011 6:46 AM

Do you call that being honest? Is this consistent with the AGW crowd’s method of operation? It would seem so and I thank you for reinforcing this belief and you will not have to worry about blocking me because why would I want to ever visit the site of such a dishonest and ignorant person who has a degree that, along with a dollar, can get you a cup of coffee about anywhere. It is a good thing that your wife works or you would be out on the street where you probably belong.

The real story is the latest exoneration of Michael Mann by yet another team of investigators and yet there is barely a word in the tabloid blogs (think WUWT). However, there are lots and lots of words surmising the “possible” implications due to the release of emails from a Cuccinelli witch hunt. I wonder what WUWT will do when that also turns up nothing? Most likely not report that either.

BTW, has anyone else noticed that the chatter regarding the “fudged” temperature records has all but disappeared since Anthony’s mega surface station study was published. Could it be that his smoking gun turned out to be a broken water pistol? I wonder what happened all that donation money has gone that he solicited just BEFORE the results were published? There must be a few people out there in sCepticland who feel cheated.

Only a fool would accept “exonerated” when there is no adversarial party. And there was never an adversary in any of Mann’s putative “exonerations.” They were simply Potemkin Village show trials, with the kissy-face outcome pre-determined. You are thoroughly credulous to blindly accept their set-piece conclusions.

If an adversary such as Steve McIntyre was allowed to question Michael Mann, Mann would fold like a busted flush and the whole grant-driven climate scam would be exposed, with Mann undoubtedly headed for the state penitentiary where he belongs, and UVA forced to refund its ill-gotten gains to the public treasury. If you don’t think so, let’s have an adversarial investigation. The truth will emerge, and the climate charlatans will be exposed.

48 hours and not a peep from the ATI. Just where is that press release outlining all the evil than Mann does?
REPLY: John, both principals of ATI are traveling, and if your recall (once you get past the snark on your brain) that it took several days for the original climategate emails to be analysed and hit the press.

Of course your complaint is just your usual snark, drop that MO and someday you may actually have a point – Anthony

Need I remind you of this line from your post: “ATI promises a press release later today once they have a better handle on the email release.”?

As far as the climategate emails go, I seem to recall that McI had a post up on the day of the release screaming about how they proved that scientists had fudged their results, etc. etc.

REPLY: Point taken, that was my interpretation of email exchange, so the fault is mine, and you take this one: Steve McIntyre doesn’t scream. And, He didn’t have anything online until two days later, and it was minimal. Your recollection is flawed, much like the agenda you embrace. – Anthony

Smokey, I thought that you would like to revisit the results of yet ANOTHER investigation.

3 February 2010: Pennsylvania State University exonerated Dr. Michael Mann of three out of four accusations, and convened a new committee to investigate the fourth accusation because it involves scientific methodology, requiring scientists to investigate it. The full report includes a more detailed “Finding” corresponding to each allegation. For brevity, only the Allegations and Decisions are quoted here.

Allegation 1: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data?

Decision 1: As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.

Allegation 2: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?

Decision 2: As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.

Allegation 3: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to you in your capacity as an academic scholar?

Decision 3: As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.

Allegation 4: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities?

Decision 4: Given that information emerged in the form of the emails purloined from CRU in November 2009, which have raised questions in the public’s mind about Dr. Mann’s conduct of his research activity, given that this may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist, and given that it may be undermining public trust in science in general and climate science specifically, the inquiry committee believes an investigatory committee of faculty peers from diverse fields should be constituted under RA-10 to further consider this allegation.

In sum, the overriding sentiment of this committee, which is composed of University administrators, is that allegation #4 revolves around the question of accepted faculty conduct surrounding scientific discourse and thus merits a review by a committee of faculty scientists. Only with such a review will the academic community and other interested parties likely feel that Penn State has discharged it responsibility on this matter.

As I stated above: “Only a fool would accept ‘exonerated’ when there is no adversarial party.”

You can have nineteen whitewashes a month, and they mean exactly nothing without an adversarial setting. Only a fool would believe Mann’s whitewashes were legitimate. They were nothing but pal review taken to another level.

Smokey,
So the congressional committee, the university, the NSF (which Inhofe, himself, thought was necessary) and the countless blogs which attempted to analyze the consistently re-accredited hockey stick are not adversarial enough for you? Which “adversarial” party was left out? What area of these investigations should they have targeted? What SPECIFIC alleged corruption was omitted from the investigations?

Smokey, I am willing to bet you all the profit that Anthony Watts pocketed from his surface station debacle that the latest email analysis will come to nothing. Are you game?

Yes, a scam of an investigation is just that, a scam and a whitewash. Of course you continue believing what you want bout your religion. We’ll wait and see the truth coming out step by step. You can’t fool everyone all the time.

Ventor, how on earth is the repeated exonerations of climatologists by major newspapers, the NSF, Congress, the English Parliament, multiple universities equivalent to the blind faith of religion?!? Are you a parrot with no mind of your own?

BTW, aren’t you a little curious as to what happened to all that money Anthony Watts scammed off his bloggers? The moment i saw him go begging for money ON THE DAY BEFORE he released his mega smoking gun of a surface station study, I smelled a rat. I just didn’t expect the rat to be so super sized.

I am just checking to see if Anthony Watts is still barring my posts on his site. It seems he is sensitive to anyone asking what happened to all that money he pandered for in regards to his surface station debacle.

“Drewski”, your posts all appear above, they automatically went to the SPAM filter of WUWT because they contain a flag word, “SCAM”, which was common to all three. You should of course understand this because you changed your email address and handle trying to get around that in the last one that went to SPAM. I pulled them out in my last blog sweep before retiring tonight.

I find your accusations hilariously amusing, and of course there’s no truth in any of it. The request for help was for publication costs for full color press in the AGU, for which I have receipt. As you’ll note that day, donations were closed as soon as readers met the goal just a few hours later. Compare that to the open ended solicitations of Al Gore while he keeps trying new ideas, like his new “climate reality” project. First thing they do is hit you up for money, and it never closes. If I was scamming people, would I have closed donations?

Anyway, all your claims are posted above, and readers can judge for themselves if they’ve been “scammed” or not. So far you, some anonymous guy in WA, are the only one raising the issue.

Of course the next thing that will likely happen is that somebody will claim I’m scamming people because AGU has dropped the color charges starting in January 2011, and our paper appears after that. Unfortunately we didn’t qualify, because we submitted in the fall of 2010. Even though we asked for an exemption, we were (ahem) denied ;-) …so I turned to the readers for help.

Also, one of my co-authors, John Christy, presented the project results at a recent AMS conference. (19th Conference on Applied Climatology 18–20 July 2011, Asheville, North Carolina) Nobody seemed to think it was a “scam” there either, as I pointed out a couple of days ago.